Can art ever go 19-0?

Wednesday

Jan 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMJan 30, 2008 at 1:49 PM

With the Patriots on the verge of going undefeated, we wondered if the arts ever achieve perfection. We asked eight local artists if they had ever seen a perfect concert, play, art exhibit or painting? And then we asked them how close they got to achieving perfection themselves.

With the Patriots on the verge of going undefeated, we wondered if the arts ever achieve perfection. We asked eight local artists if they had ever seen a perfect concert, play, art exhibit or painting? And then we asked them how close they got to achieving perfection themselves.

Al Kooper
Musician, composer, producer

Pick: Prince concert

“The first Prince concert I saw was perfection. The performance, the music, everything. And I only knew one song when I went to see it. He was touring his first album. It was at the Roxy in New York. I went with Daryl Hall. After the second song I said to him, ‘Am I crazy or is this the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life?’ And he said, ‘You’re not crazy.’”

“It was the best chemistry I’ve ever seen in any project I’ve ever been involved with. The musicians and the material and the location — it was in Nashville. It was the first time I’d ever recorded outside of New York studios. There were great [Nashville] musicians on it. Some would say that there also were on “Highway 61 Revisited,” the album before it. I had more control on “Blonde on Blonde.” I was sort of the musical director. A lot of those [songs] were my arrangements. I think it’s one of the greatest albums of all time.”

Spiro Veloudos
Artistic Director, Lyric Stage Company of Boston

Pick: “August: Osage County” (now playing in New York)

“That was about as perfect a production as I have seen in years. The company was fabulous, the sets were beautiful, and the play was terrific. It was a story all about family relationships. It was three hours of theater that just went by so quickly.

“As for musicals, I’d say the production of (Stephen Sondheim’s) “Company” that I saw recently in New York. The direction was so fabulous that I came back to Boston thinking, “Well, now I’ve got to become a plumber.”

“Everything came together, starting with the cast. It was a wonderful experience, onstage and off. As we were rehearsing, it seemed we had the makings of something perfect. But perfection is a relative word. There’s always something else to fix or achieve.”

Keith Lockhart
Music Director, Boston Pops

Pick: “Well, perfection is a tough word in music, because all of us know it doesn’t really exist. Every now and then, there are such things as perfect moments, when improbably everything comes together as well as it possibly could. We’ve had couple of those things happen at Pops concerts.”

“There was a performance (of Mahler’s “8th”) I did six years ago. There were 900 performers and everyone was on top of their game. At the end of it, I was standing at the podium, and said that I’ll never experience an hour and a half like that again.”

Rick Lombardo
Artistic Director, New Repertory Theatre

Pick: Bruce Springsteen, 1986

“Bruce Springsteen. Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Fourth row. Giants Stadium, New Jersey. Being so close to where he grew up… It was the transcendent rock ‘n’ roll moment.

“Also, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Nicholas Nickelby’ in the mid-1980s. It took a whole day to see both parts, and I remember being completely transported. Even after 7 and a half hours, I didn’t want to leave the theater.”

Closest to Creating Perfection: “Sweeney Todd,” at New Rep

“That production was in the old New Rep space (in Newton Highlands), and that (small) space created a lens that focused it and made it so powerful. I felt that show had a gut-level impact.”

John Ehrlich
Music Director, Spectrum Singers

Pick: Rockwell Kent and Edward Hopper exhibits

“The Rockwell Kent exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art was mind-bendingly amazing. That and the Edward Hopper at the MFA. Those were two of the finest exhibits of American art that I’ve ever seen. It was great to finally see so many of these iconographic images, in their real form rather than reproduction, and to gain an even deeper appreciation of how talented those two men were in very different ways.”

“I guess I would go back to my first performance as a choir member in the Tanglewood Chorus. “Gurre Lieder” is a long sprawling late-romantic early-contemporary work by Schoenberg. It’s for a humongous orchestra, several soloists and chorus. I knew it, but I’d never been in it. It was a transcendent moment.”

“I was really knocked over by the photographs of Laura McPhee — a Brookline artist. They were something like 60 inches square, maybe larger. She did an artist in residency out in Idaho and there were these immaculately beautiful, rich, detailed photographs of nature and wildlife and water and snow. Just really, really beautiful. And it took you there. It took you away.”

Closest to Creating Perfection: Dance performance in Iran

“My very first professional dance performance in the ancient ruins of Persepolis, Iran, when I was dancing with the Nikolais Dance Theatre. It was outdoors and it was just an incredible experience. It’s that feeling that you’re all one and that you are actually creating art. You’re in an art form, and I felt a part of something whole. It was physical, it was spiritual, it was visual, it was sensual — all of those elements.”

Darcy Kuronen
Curator of Musical Instruments, MFA

Pick: “The Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky

“It’s a big orchestral work that hit me powerfully while I was a teenager and still sends chills up my spine when I hear it, either live or on my iPod. It was written close to 100 years ago, but still has this energizing and unsettling effect on people. For me, personally, it’s one of the most perfect pieces of music.”

“It just kind of lined up, we didn’t get a bad review anywhere, everyone loved it. The guitars were beautiful and (there was) an audio guide narrated by James Taylor. I think it opened up people’s minds about the 400-year history of the guitar. People still talk about (that show). I would be hard-pressed to come up with an event like that again. It was some sort of perfection for me.”

Our two cents on perfection

Alexander Stevens: “Hamlet,” the Old Vic, London

How much more perfect does it get than a great night of “Hamlet”? Directed by Trevor Nunn? In London? Seated dead center. Four rows back. The four hours flew by. Young Ben Whishaw was getting lots of attention for raw performance of the melancholy Dane: When first we meet him, he’s a mess of snot and tears — devastated by the death of his father. But the rest of the cast was just as good. There is something magical about seeing Shakespeare in Lodon. You feel you are in the hands of actors who have Shakespeare etched into their DNA. You hear it, appreciate it, in ways you never have before.

Ed Symkus: “Koyaanisqatsi,” Godfrey Reggio

In the fall of 1983, I saw “Koyaanisqatsi.” The film was only about 90 minutes long, but I wished it had gone on all night. About a half-hour in, I realized that there were no words, nothing beyond the chanting of the title, with Philip Glass’s hypnotic, repetitive score behind it. The film is an all-encompassing visual and aural experience that juxtaposes the natural world and the industrialized world. The Glass music was matched with stunning, graceful photography. I remember sitting there, my mouth slightly open, staring at the screen like a deer caught in headlights. The film stayed with me for days.

Francis Ma: “Blood on the Tracks,” Bob Dylan

I first heard Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” in college. In the early morning hours, after the dust had settled from a party in our apartment, the topic of “favorite albums” prompted a friend to play “Blood on the Tracks.” We all sat back, sipping the last of our beer and taking in the soft melodies of Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece for lonely, heartbroken and despondent. But it also offers hope. It raises you up with the feeling that you aren’t the only weird one at the party. And 30 years after it was released, it’s still an eloquent and poetic, as haunting and enthralling as the first time I heard it.

From the staff of Community Newspaper Co.'s Metro unit, GateHouse Media New England.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.